


Rainy Days

by foxysquid



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Child Murder, Gen, Murder, Murder Husbands, Murderers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:49:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxysquid/pseuds/foxysquid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ordinary day in the life of Ryuunosuke.  The weather may be rainy, but he retains his sunny disposition!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainy Days

It's a good day. It's raining. Most people like the sun, and Ryuunosuke is no exception, but he likes the rain, too. When he gets out of work--it's a small shop, they don't really know him there and probably won't remember his name in a few months' time--he stops on the sidewalk and looks up, staring at the sky, raindrops sliding down his face. Rain washes everything away: that's what's so great about it!

It's a heavy rain, and he's soaked within minutes. He forgot to bring an umbrella, but that doesn't bother him. Once he's done sky-gazing, he walks down the street with his hands in his pockets, humming to himself. He leaves the shop behind. The other people working there, the longer-term employees, think he's a friendly guy. They like him. He's been invited out for drinks a couple times. He gets along well with people wherever he goes, even if he doesn't leave a lasting impression.

_That guy... Oh right!_

_He worked here once, yeah, he seemed all right. Went out with him once. He was pretty funny._

These jobs are the same everywhere. It's boring! But that's cool with him. There's a bounce in his step as he heads toward the room he's renting, and that's when he sees her. He stops short. Most of the umbrellas on the street are black or dreary, or at least solid colors, but hers is different. It's tawny-gold and dark brown, in a familiar pattern. Leopard print.

He's far enough away from work. He bumps into her, as if by accident. "Ah--sorry, the rain got in my eyes." Sheepish, he smiles apologetically, brushing his sodden hair back with one hand. "Hey--I like your umbrella!" He points down at his shoes, with their similar print. "Look, we match."

She smiles. She's not particularly pretty, but that's okay. He doesn't have a "type" or anything like that. Kids and weaker women are easier for him to overpower. He's not too picky. What he wants, everyone has. That's real equal, isn't it? Real--fair.

On a rainy day, people notice bright the umbrella with two people beneath it. They're not going to say later what the man's hair color was, or what his eyes looked like, or how tall he was. The sky's full of storm, and everyone wants to get to where they're going without lingering any longer than usual in the hard, cold rain. They don't have time to peer under umbrellas and take notes. So there were two bodies and four arms and four legs squeezing in together and getting a little wet under that umbrella, but afterward, some people won't be entirely sure if there were two people or one. It was raining! Maybe they'd left their car window open. They had to hurry and find out.

The rain beats an excited rhythm on the roof. It's fun to kill someone in their own house. It's more personal, more unique, and they stare at their walls and their furniture and their favorite things with a look on their faces like they can't believe this is happening here. Ryuunosuke considers himself a creative person. Taking someone else's work and making something new out of it--that's art! Splattering blood across the clean floor and draping soft intestines over the stiff armchair. When he's done, the whole place is different. It looks, smells, tastes different, and it's quiet, except for the rain drumming its approval on the roof.

When he's back on the street, no one thinks anything of him being soaked down to his leopard print shoes. He's a man without an umbrella--well, he has an umbrella now, to match his shoes, but no one notices the wet. It's expected for someone to be damp on a day like this. The water washes things away. Not that he only uses water. That would be stupid. He balances the end of the umbrella on his palm and makes it twirl. He doesn't take trophies, isn't that what they call them? He just liked the umbrella.

He's too excited to go straight home, so he strolls through the gray streets with the bright riot of color in his mind. Look how tired and dull everyone is, but when you split them open, suddenly they're beautiful. There's red everywhere and so many other colors besides, rich and beautiful and warm. If everyone popped open all at once, the city would be like a garden of flowers! Maybe that could happen someday. For now, he enjoys the ordinary everydayness of the sidewalks and the traffic. It's all the better in light of the colorful secret he carries inside. He knows something no one else knows. That's what being an artist is about.

He spends a few minutes in a café, warming his hands on a cup of coffee. Then he ducks into the bookstore next door, looking for something to interest him. He leafs through coffee table books of imaginary monsters, modern painters, and fashion models. They're all right, but... in the end, his steps lead him to a tiny section of true crime books, and he slides one off the shelf. It's a history of crime scene photos. Ryuunosuke studies the blank faces and limp shapes of the corpses. Even if they're black and white, people looked the same dead in the old days. Though most of the killers didn't do anything interesting. There's a stab wound or a shot to the head, or a body turned away so that you can't tell what happened to it. If not for a stain on the floor, they could be sleeping. Ryuunosuke wonders if there's another book with the really gross crimes. He'd like that better. And some color pictures. 

He slides the book back onto the shelf and takes out another one, _History's Greatest Criminals_. It's got less pictures, but it's better because the crimes in it are really something. The crime scene book had your usual murders, nothing special. This one has personalities. Murderers with style! There's a faint smile on Ryuunosuke's face as he leafs through the pages, reading articles at random. The pictures are mostly portraits. No victims here. They should have put in a few... He'd do a great job at putting together a book about murderers.

He stops at a picture of an old time guy with funny hair who looks more like a knight than a killer. He tilts his head to one side as he skims the article. Ah, the guy killed kids like he does, a lot of them, and gruesomely, too. Maybe more than a hundred. Maybe two hundred. They say people were prudes in the old days, but that's not true. They're like they always were. People don't change. They don't change inside, in their guts. All those kids... That must have been great to see, but they didn't have photographs in those days, and a drawing's not the same as the real thing, not that there are drawings of the kids either.

He runs his very clean fingertip over the page. Imagine, there are other people in the world who like the same stuff he does. He's never met one, but you've got to keep this kind of thing a secret. He could walk right past another killer and never know. People don't know when they walk past him. You never know who anybody is until you open them up. Isn't that great? It keeps life exciting. Not that it wouldn't be fun, meeting somebody else like him. You know, most people like to talk about their hobbies to someone.

Ryuunosuke puts the book back on the shelf. He could take it, but he knows he's not going to read it. He likes pictures better than reading. No, he likes life better than reading and better than pictures. He's already forgotten the name of the guy in the book. With a friendly wave at the cashier, he walks out of the store and into the rain.


End file.
